Only 1 out of 10,000 novel drug candidates makes it through the drug development pipelines to reach the pharmacy shelves. It is estimated that about 40% of novel drug candidates fail due to low bioavailability associated with poor aqueous solubility. Many drug candidates that exhibit high potency are abandoned by pharmaceutical companies because of poor bioavailability. One of the most common problems is that the drug candidates exhibit poor solubility in aqueous solution and therefore are difficult to formulate. One solution that has been employed by the pharmaceutical industry is to encapsulate drugs inside cyclodextrins. However, cyclodextrin-based solubility enhancement is not a universal solution. Therefore, there is an ongoing need for improved compositions for increasing solubility of pharmaceutical agents. The present invention meets these and other needs.